Did you know that Reason videos on YouTube pulled 37.5 million views over the last year (up from 29.3 million a year before)? That amounts to about 3.5 million hours of watch time and is an increase of 30 percent over 2019. We’ve also added 129,000 subscribers over the same period, for a total of 606,000.
These are positively ginormous numbers and I’m proud to have been part of Reason‘s video team since its early days back in 2007, when comic legend and Reason Foundation trustee Drew Carey launched our video platform with a series of documentaries about fixing traffic congestion, legalizing the sale of organs (and weed!), showing the benefits of high levels of immigration, and celebrating the pleasures of illegal bacon-wrapped hot dogs (go here for a list of all Drew’s videos).
And get this: Fully 56.3 percent of our YouTube audience is under 35, meaning we’re reaching younger people and turning them on to the power, beauty, and necessity of “Free Minds and Free Markets” and a libertarian sensibility about politics, culture, and ideas (all the stats mentioned above come from YouTube’s analytics).
Cranking out hundreds of videos a year that get seen by millions of people takes time, talent, and money. Today is the fourth day of our annual webathon, when we ask our readers, listeners, and viewers to fund our print, web, audio, and video journalism. If you like our videos, please consider making a tax-deductible donation right now.
Every dollar you send helps us put out the next video that just might change the mind (and thus the world) of a kid, family member, neighbor, or coworker. Sometimes we do it with humor (“Games of Thrones: Libertarian Edition“), sometimes we do it with sadness and outrage (“Police Shoot, Kill 80-Year-Old Man In His Own Bed, Don’t Find the Drugs They Were Looking For“), and sometimes we do it with good, old-fashioned debate (“Capitalism vs. Socialism: A Soho Forum Debate“).
Click on this link to see the swag associated with various giving levels (for instance, $50 gets you a great bookmark designed by the fantastic cartoonist Peter Bagge, $250 gets you a 2021 Reason calendar, $1,000 gets you a ton of stuff including, God help us all, lunch with an editor in D.C.).
Your financial support is absolutely essential to our efforts to make the world more fair and fun, interesting and innovative, peaceful, and prosperous. However awful 2020 has been, 2021 has all the potential to be far, far worse. Your contribution will help us—and you—fight the good fight and create a better world for everyone.
I’ll leave you with a recent example of another type of video that defines Reason: the long-form interview. In an era when more and more cable news outlets have zigged toward shorter and shorter Q&As with guests who always conform to played-out, tribal, partisan identities, we’ve always opted for richly informed, engaged conversations with people who may or may not agree with all our priors. That adds another dimension to our video offerings, and it’s one that yields new ways of thinking about changing the world and building the sort of coalitions that push back against censorship, endless wars, prohibition, and general mindlessness. Here’s my interview with journalist Glenn Greenwald about foreign policy, left-wing attacks on free thought, and where libertarians and progressives might join forces.
Founded in 1968, Reason is the magazine of free minds and free markets. We produce hard-hitting independent journalism on civil liberties, politics, technology, culture, policy, and commerce. Reason exists outside of the left/right echo chamber. Our goal is to deliver fresh, unbiased information and insights to our readers, viewers, and listeners every day. Visit https://reason.com